


In for a Twenty, In for a Pound

by NedrynWrites



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Confessions, First Kiss, Gay Camus | Erik (Dragon Quest XI), Hero | Luminary is Named Eleven | El (Dragon Quest XI), M/M, Making Out, Mute Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI), Mutual Pining, Pansexual Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 21:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19450054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NedrynWrites/pseuds/NedrynWrites
Summary: Based on a Tumblr prompt:< Wouldyoukissmefor twenty bucks? > Eleven signed pointedly.“I would’ve done that for free, but-”Eleven choked on air. < Wait- >“I’ll take the twenty, thanks.” Erik smirked and held out his hand.





	In for a Twenty, In for a Pound

**Author's Note:**

> Eleven is mute and uses ASL in this, but I didn't necessarily research every phrase he says, so please forgive me if it looks a little awkward.
> 
> Rated Teen for several swears and Very detailed making out, like, I was bright red through writing this, that level of making out

< Mia really let Faris kiss her for a twenty? > Eleven signed, baffled. The noises from the movie, long forgotten in their talking, rattled in the background. They sat on the only non-bed sitting space in the tiny two-bedroom they shared with the twins, a ratty old couch that always smelled strangely of lunch meat.

“I mean, it’s not like I blame her,” Erik said. “That’s enough money to have a meal in this expensive-ass cafeteria.” 

< Would  _ you _ kiss  _ me _ for twenty bucks? > Eleven signed pointedly. 

“I would’ve done that for free, but-” 

Eleven choked on air. < Wait- >

“I’ll take the twenty, thanks.” Erik smirked and held out his hand. 

For one horrible moment, Eleven felt his fingers twitch toward his wallet. That would be…  _ so _ wrong. Paying Erik to kiss him. No matter how big of a crush he had, no matter how  _ desperate _ he was to have Erik’s mouth on his, to feel that electric blue hair as his hands ran through it, those legs straddling- 

“Will you relax?” Erik snorted. “I was just joking.” 

< About… > Eleven’s hands shook. < About the money, or the kiss? >

“Uh, both?” Erik’s expression was a strange one. Not quite confusion. Eleven couldn’t seem to get a read on it. 

< I mean, you said you would have- > He cut himself off. What was he  _ thinking? _ Erik didn’t like him like that. Didn’t  _ want _ him like that. Erik made it pretty clear he had feelings for someone else, in fact. < Never mind. >

“Aww, come on, I know you wanted to say something. What, do you want me to?” Erik teased. 

Eleven froze, heart in his throat, feeling like it was choking him. He knew he was  _ shit _ at lying, especially to Erik, who could read him like an open book. It was a miracle he hadn’t found out about Eleven’s earth-shattering crush on him already. 

_ Too late, _ he realized,  _ there’s no getting out of this one. _ If Erik didn’t figure it out already, he would have by now, as the panic stilled Eleven’s hands. Their friendship was fucked. 

Eleven wondered what he should text his sister. He was probably going to have to stay at hers tonight, considering the fact that he and Erik were cramming themselves on a single twin-sized bed. Veronica and Serena had been very kind to squeeze into the other one, so the two of them didn’t have to sleep on the floor just to have a roof over their heads. 

Jade already had a spot waiting for him. There was an Eleven-shaped crease on her couch that she was starting to call “the mushroom hovel.” He regretted telling her about that anime phase he had in his early teens, while she was off at college and not around to make fun of his entertainment choices. 

Eleven took a deep breath. < Do you? > he finally settled on. 

Erik wordlessly opened and closed his mouth. Eleven braced for the oncoming rejection. 

He  _ didn’t  _ brace for Erik crossing the distance between them on the couch. 

“Tell me if you don’t want this,” Erik whispered, so close,  _ so close, _ cupping Eleven’s face. His skin burned where Erik’s fingertips touched his cheekbones, where the leather of his gloves brushed his jaw. “Or… push me away, or something.” 

Erik’s lips were already on Eleven’s before his mind caught up. And then he had to suffer a whole second meltdown of  _ oh my god, oh my god, he’s  _ kissing _ me, _ before he was able to return it. 

And it was almost too late. Erik was pulling back, eyes filled with uncertainty,  _ fear, _ maybe. 

Eleven managed to get a handful of hoodie, despite the symphony of  _ screaming _ happening in his mind, and pulled Erik back in. 

They crashed together. It was messy, and uncoordinated, and abundantly clear that neither had a damn clue what they were doing. Eleven had only chaste kisses in high school, after all, and as far as he was aware, Erik had never dated. 

But Eleven couldn’t be bothered to care how bad it was, because this was  _ Erik, _ and he was  _ kissing him. _ He tasted like popcorn, and a little bit of that awful flavor of mountain dew he loved so much. 

Erik pulled back, catching his breath. He rested his forehead against Eleven’s. 

“Try… opening your mouth a little?” Erik suggested. His breathing had slowed, but it was far from back to normal. 

Eleven obliged anyway. Erik was an adult and knew his limits, and damn it, Eleven just wanted to keep kissing him. 

It was a little slimy, but actually pretty nice. Eleven sighed happily through his nose as Erik gently laced his fingers through Eleven’s hair, from the hair band to the ends and then back. 

Reluctantly, Eleven was the one to break the kiss this time. 

< Push your lips out a bit more? >

They tried that, and had to break apart for Eleven’s giggling. < Not that far, I feel like I’m kissing a fish. >

Erik rolled his eyes, but did as he was asked. 

And that was nice, too. Really nice. So nice that Eleven may have forgotten himself for a moment. Opened his mouth just a tad wider, letting Erik’s lower lip into his mouth. He sealed his own lips around it, and pulled softly. 

A shocked grunt and a hand gripping Eleven’s shoulder brought him back to his senses. 

< Sorry! > he signed quickly, pulling back. < Sorry, > he repeated, unsure if Erik saw the fist over his heart the first time. 

“Fuck, don’t  _ apologize, _ ” Erik said, voice hoarse, “do it  _ again _ .” 

Eleven had always found it difficult to deny Erik any request. He certainly wasn’t going to break that habit now. 

He reeled Erik back in by the neck of his hoodie, wasting no time in pulling the other’s lower lip into his mouth. He sucked gently, and let his teeth scrape over it ever so lightly. 

Erik groaned, and squirmed in place. His hands came back up to tangle in Eleven’s hair, accidentally popping it out of its ponytail. The band went sailing off into the unknown. 

_ Another one that we’ll find at the end of the semester, _ Eleven mused deliriously. 

Eleven felt something wet touch his upper lip. He moved instinctively, opening his mouth wider. Erik’s lip popped back from between Eleven’s teeth, his tongue quickly replacing it. 

Eleven felt like his brain was melting as Erik’s tongue traced the inside of his mouth, finding what spots would cause him to inhale sharply through his nose, what movements would make him grip Erik’s hoodie tighter in his hands. 

Eleven felt like they were there forever. Through the mud of his brain, he could faintly hear the end credits music of the movie he knew so well. 

Erik’s tongue flicked the roof of Eleven’s mouth, just behind the front teeth, causing him to shiver. It tickled. He ran his tongue along the underside of Erik’s, guiding it deeper into his mouth, before sucking on it lightly. 

Erik groaned, and Eleven felt little pricks of pain as the other’s hand clenched in his hair. That did…  _ something  _ to him, something he didn’t feel quite ready to admit yet. 

And then Erik crawled into his lap, straddling his hips, and there was a whole lot more of that something. 

Erik broke the kiss to adjust his position, and Eleven sat gasping, helpless to do anything, to look anywhere but those ocean eyes. 

“You good?” Erik murmured, easing Eleven out of the daze. His hoodie was wrinkled at the collar, lips red and shiny. 

Eleven nodded slowly. He must have taken longer than he thought to respond, because Erik looked concerned. 

“Need to take a break?” 

Eleven didn’t want to. But he said need, not want. Break, not  _ stop. _ Implying there was a good chance of more kisses in the future. 

_ We need to talk, _ Eleven realized through the clouds in his head. He didn’t want this to be a one-time thing, where they would pretend it didn’t happen just like they pretended waking up cuddling didn’t happen, when they were two grown men on a fucking twin-sized bed. Even less, to form some kind of friends-with-benefits agreement. He…  _ loved _ Erik too much to be able to stand that. 

Eleven nodded again. Erik moved off his lap, and he immediately felt too cold. Erik didn’t go far, thankfully, so it didn’t feel unnatural for Eleven to drop his head on the other’s shoulder, still catching his breath. 

At some point, the movie had ended. It was looping through clips on the main screen, playing the same twenty seconds of music over and over. 

“Was that last part too much?” Erik asked, arm going around Eleven’s shoulders, fingers lacing into his hair, gently starting to detangle the damage he had done while they were kissing. 

< Maybe, > Eleven answered honestly. 

“Sorry,” Erik said. 

Eleven let out a barely-audible rumble in his throat as Erik’s blunt nails scratched his scalp. He had always liked having his hair messed with. His mum would comb his hair in the evenings as Grandpa Chalky regaled them with stories of his youthful adventures. His sister, just graduated, got the notion that she would be a hairdresser and used him for practice, though she soon learned that most eleven-year-olds weren’t nearly as still as he and ditched that idea. Gemma, too, often braided his hair, especially when they were dating in early high school. 

“You’re like a cat,” Erik chuckled. 

Eleven smiled into his shoulder. 

He wondered how he should bring it up. The…  _ feelings _ part. Should he just up and ask what the kiss meant? Offer to take Erik on a date? Say nothing, assume they were boyfriends, and get his heart broken when Erik talked about his crush on Derk again? 

He felt the smile slip from his face as he began to imagine worse and worse scenarios. 

“I can see you spiraling, you know,” Erik chided. “What’s wrong?” 

< Does this mean… do you… > Eleven sat on his hands, frustrated. He glared at his knees. Why was this so hard? 

“Listen, El,” Erik said, the fond nickname making Eleven’s stomach flip. “This doesn’t have to change anything if you don’t want it to.” 

Eleven scowled harder. He wanted it to. He wanted to hold Erik’s hand, to take him on dates, to re-introduce him to his family as his  _ boyfriend. _ To make the twins suffer with how sappy their roommates kept acting, to have Sylv make fun of them, to make Hendrik feel awkward as his husband  _ insisted _ on going on double dates with them. 

But what if Erik didn’t want that? He was offering him a way out, after all. To preserve the amazing friendship they had, for what it was, to keep things the same. 

Eleven shifted to free his hands. < What do  _ you _ want? > he asked cautiously. 

The hand in Eleven’s hair froze. “I-” Erik’s voice cracked. “I want you to be happy,” he rushed out. “If that means you want to stay friends and pretend this never happened, that’s fine, if it means you want to kiss sometimes, that’s  _ great. _ If it means you want to try…  _ dating, _ I… I think that’s better than I deserve, but-” 

< Is that what you want? > Eleven interrupted. < I want you to be happy, too. Would dating me make you happy? >

Erik swallowed loudly. He raised his free hand to rub the back of his neck. “Would it… make  _ you _ happy?” 

Eleven nearly sighed. This would go nowhere if neither was willing to jump first. 

He nodded, heart thudding in his chest so hard it  _ hurt. _

Erik gaped at him. Then he kissed him. 

It was quick, and chaste, and somehow a thousand times more intimate than the kisses they shared moments ago. 

< You still didn’t answer my question, > Eleven signed when they parted. < Do you want to be with me? >

“Do you even need to ask?” 

< I’d like you to say it, yes. >

“I… yes,  _ yes, _ El, I want to be with you,” Erik said, a bright blush spreading across his cheeks. 

Eleven grinned so wide his face ached. This time he was the one to swoop in to steal a kiss, and then another, and then another. 

Erik fell backwards across the couch, arms still clinging onto Eleven’s shoulders, and what could he do but follow? 

He settled between Erik’s legs, not quite fallen into a place where he could keep at his mouth. Instead of moving, he trailed feather-light kisses along Erik’s neck, leaving him gasping. 

Erik was very… wiggly, Eleven noticed. He had trouble being still when they were kissing, especially when Eleven did something he liked. 

Eleven traced his teeth along the same path his kisses took, and Erik whined, actually  _ whined, _ and writhed under him so much Eleven nearly fell off the couch. 

And that was when someone decided to open the door. 

Eleven hit the ground with a thunk in his effort to separate. 

“Ugh,  _ finally, _ ” Veronica said, holding the door open with one hand, and more groceries than a petite woman like her would reasonably be able to hold in  _ both _ arms slung over the other. “If you two took much longer, I’d owe Sylv money.” 

She kicked the door shut behind her, and sloppily dropped the bags on the counter. Neither Eleven nor Erik moved yet. 

“I  _ guess _ I can forgive you for not picking up your phones. But these bags were damned heavy, you know.” 

They both got to their feet in a daze. Erik, for once, didn’t complain as they took over putting the groceries away. While they did so, Veronica daintily sat on the edge of the couch, frowning at it like it might be dirty, and made a call on her phone. She turned off the TV, finally ending the blasted music loop, as she waited for the other end to pick up. 

“Sylv?  _ Yes, _ it’s me, don’t you have all your contacts set with different ringtones?  _ Anyway, _ you owe me twenty dollars, pay up.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Another fun warmup I did that I ended up liking! I have a much bigger, Act III canon fic in the works, so please look out for that! And as always, if you liked it, please drop a kudos, or a comment if you're feeling brave! Even a smiley face to let me know you enjoyed it would make me very happy! 
> 
> [Tumblr](https://nedrynwrites.tumblr.com/)  
> Feel free to comment/message me if you have questions! I love talking to you!


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